Posted
by
michael
on Friday April 11, 2003 @06:09PM
from the practicing-for-syria dept.

Daniel Rutter writes "I've just reviewed a couple of Konami's Combat DigiQs - tiny little remote controlled tanks that can shoot each other. You can stage a two-, three- or four-tank battle, every tank for himself or in teams of two, on a coffee table. They rock."

Jeez, the memories... As a youth I converted a regular Estes rocket launching kit into a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher by simply putting PVC pipe around the launching stand, gluing the whole thing to a piece of wood, and velcroing the ignition switch the end of it. Presto, instant (suburban) WMD. God, what was I thinking?

I've solved this problem by continuing to buy toys for myself - and now I've got money!

Fact is that as a kid I don't think I would have appreciated the coolness of this. A friend of mine had one of those helicopters that flew in circles, and model rocketry stuff, and I liked it but I thought it was all part of being a kid.

Now I own a Vectron Flying Saucer [techtv.com] and a bunch of other cool stuff, and I still play with at much as if I were a kid. But now I realized how awesome it is scientifically, and the fact that things weren't always this cool.

Somehow wanting something for thiry years makes it that much sweeter. Makes me look forward to being eighty.

No, those are not the DigiQ tanks. I own a pair of DigiQs, and they are about half that size and quite a bit more historically accurate (the DigiQ line is modeled -- as I said, somewhat accurately -- on WWII tanks). Furthermore, the ThinkGeek tanks are hard-coded to one frequency while the DigiQ can be reprogrammed. DigiQ also have multiple battle modes, including a very fun "simulation" (where different models have different ammo payloads and reload times).

the neatest parts of the tanks you linked to, which are made by Plantraco, is that they can be controlled by PC (in a simple "move forward, turn left, move forward" setup) and they sell video cameras to go on top of them.

I play with a small RC car that has a camera attached to it quite often, and its fun as hell to see the world, or my apartment, from that point of view (ever wonder what a cockroach sees?). Playing laser tag like that would rock even more than from overhead.

These kind of "office toys" play havoc with one's productivity in the office. I have bought a couple of toys (namely a Mini MP5 Gun [iwantoneofthose.com] and a Rubber Band Gun [iwantoneofthose.com], and both caused much merriment, and less work. I know I could kiss work goodbye if I had one of these babies!

As you said, looks interesting. I believe it is a Christian geek site as some of the "Ask Jesusgeek" questions refer to setting up a cyber cafe at a church. Also the Theology section [jesusgeeks.net] kinda gives it away.

They'll also need a traditional green army man standing on a tiny pedestal that they can hook the tank up to with dental floss to "topple" the regieme.

If the tanks were a little bigger, they could pretend that the minesweeper guy is Geraldo, and drive him out of the country - finally give that minesweeper a purpose in life (other than to be melted by magnifying glasses)

The puff of flour sounds like a dust explosion. I don't know the exact dynamics, but large surface area (fine grains of flour) and lots of oxygen (the cloud is not very dense) and high temperature (the flame) combine to very rapidly combust the flour practically instantaneously creating a dust explosion. For this to occur there's probably a 'sweet spot' in the ratio of flour:air:heat, if either is out of balance nothing happens or individual grains just burn up individually as they hit the flame. Someone wh

I did this demo as part of a University Chemistry team when we would go aroudn to grade schools in rural areas and help out the science teachers. We always used a turkey baster filled with flour and then just bashed on the bulb while pointing the thing across the path of a blow torch. Worked like a charm and sent up a 2-4 foot ball of flames.

Many different substances can be explosive given the right amount of oxygen surrounding the flammable particles. It's a fairly common trick that middle school science teachers do to wake up their students [meigsmagnet.org].:)

HowStuffWorks has your answer, and if properly done they can look exceptionally cool. Not that I'm endorsing building a device for it, nor doing it, for education purposes only. Do not try this at home, and I'm not going into design instructions no matter how hard you beg.

I think the wireframe tank game on the Mac was Spectre. When I got it came with a cool plot outline and a copy of Snowcrash. That had me quite hooked for a while. Very simple, but very intense.

YES! That's the one! It was sweet. You had a limited budget of "stuff" and could spread it between ammmo capacity, speed, and armour if I remember correctly...and holy cow did the bad guys get tough after a while:-)

Realy these are kind of lame, what I want is a Geo metro, striped down, some thin-skin armor attached, the 23mm chain gun from the Bradley's and maybe a M2 50 Cal machine gun for anti-personel work, and a Mark 19 40mm grenade launcher installed. run the whole via reomte control, just beam back video and thermal imaging to the operator. This would give RPV a whole new meaning!

Here you go [dansdata.com]. 6mm BB bullets. But you know how cats are... once the batteries are down and the thing sits in the corner, they'll just pee on it (that is how cats show their discomfort with something - they pee on it). Even the electronics aren't shorted out, you'll still have a $130 toy tank that smells of cat pee.

for somebody to hook this up to their infra-red port and a web cam and have a little AI tank a-la Robocode. Maybe the guy that did the computer that plays a game of tetris running on another computer can do it.

Your likely to get a lot of the flame melting your rear end. The tail of your car creates a real low pressure zone, and even creates some forward air flow. If you've ever been in a convertable and had your hair fly forward into your face, you know what I'm talking about.

My brother and I ordered them from Japan back during Christmas. They are in fact really cool little toys.

The advantages these little things have over the other MiniRC craze are:

No ugly/fragile antenna (IR Control)

Better cosmetic detail of the bodies. A couple little plastic pieces to glue on for added effect are included.

The IR Weapons onboard complete the ultimate childhood fantasy of having your little plastic army men fight.

Good control unit with swapable modules so you can use the same radio to control all the different types of tanks...

The IR control is pretty good as far as range is concerned as long as you have line of sight. You have to mind that you point the control unit in the general direction of the tank... I've been stalled and hit a couple times because I didn't pay attention. There are cool little LED special effects and shaking when your opponent hits you with a shot...

These things will have you building little obstacles and battlefields pretty soon after playing a couple rounds...

Glad somebody wrote a review on these Konami tanks... Very cool... There are also hobbyists who make larger 1/15 scale versions but they cost hundreds... You can get two of these for about $100 plus shipping from Japan right now.

I was going to put off the kids thing a few more years, but I need a justifiable reason to spend $125 on these things. So, if there's any women out there who would like to get married and have my child soon there after, and also provide me with your Visa card so I can order these tanks (for are soon to arrive child), please send me a message.

Several 'skill levels' that let you handicap a player (limit number of shots, limit firing frequency)

Unlike the mini-RC cars which use a capacitor, these things have quick-charge NiMH batteries. It takes about 10 minutes to charge 'em up, but they last about 20 minutes of continuous play.

A 'hit' tank spins and flashes, so there's some real effects to getting hit. They also slow down as they get hit.

The several tanks they have all have slightly different characteristics: speed, firing speed, number of shots, damage done per shot, 'hit points'. This adds to the fun of the variety of tanks. The characteristics are controlled by a key chip on the controller which can be traded out, or perhaps upgraded?

The turret may turn, but the IR that fires is beneath the turret. A motorized turret would not change the game.

They are a bit pricey, but the WWII Winter set includes two tanks, plus obstacles to hide behind and decals.

Whoops. Sloppy of me. I was looking at them from the top down in the packaging, and there's a large visible divot on each of the tanks below the turret, and I mistakenly identified that as the IR transmitter. It's smaller, and indeed on the turret.

The turret only moves about 30-40 degrees to the right and left. But since you can back up easily, you can still fire in the opposite direction.

For some time now I've felt that toys like this (especially the ones with the rotating turrets) could be a cool mall concession. Arcades no longer offer any appreciable advantage over home systems and my local mall has a kiddy train that goes around incircles. Put the two together with some sand and rocks and your have fun for all ages! I have to think a 5 or ten min frag session would make more than some crappy train.

No wonder the US is always going after a war. I really have a problem when anything related to war is turned into a game (see Sony trademarking "Shock and Awe"). What's next: toy civilians that bleed just like real ones?

US is aways going to war because countries like France, Germany and Russia have been selling 9 Billion dollars of goods on credit (that's each too) to countires like Iraq, and Iraq doesn't seem to have bought things like food or medicine with it either.

My comment was directed at the ones *using* the toys, and not only the ones in the US. It just happens that right now it is the US playing Nintendo war, but it could always apply elsewhere too. And yes, I'm just as disgusted at the company, regardless of where it comes from.

Someone already mentioned hooking up an IR controller to their serial port, but what about for over the net multiplayer? Some strategicly placed cameras, 4 tanks, 4 players. I'd do this to have battles with my friends over fields of 486 hardware. I'm sure you could figure out some cool scenarios too with extra IR receivers/senders on the battle field. Stationary guns for defense, minefields, etc. Maybe a game where one team must defend an IR target while the other attacks. This is a must have toy.

The 3d ones just aren't very much fun in my opinion. Maybe my brain isn't just equiped to handle the math, but i can do an okay job of estimating angles and speeds int he 2D version, and even sometimes do a semi-competent job of judging in the wind factor.

However i've had massive problems with every 3D version i've tried. Not only is my first guess almost always rather off because of the complications of the third dimension, but adjusting the shot takes a long time as well. It just takes way too long and isn't as much fun.

Of course hopefully the toy tanks wouldn't take so long to render, and it would be really easy to multi-thread and have them all shooting at once:)

You always miss the first shot. In fact generally (Today's New Army as the standing exception) they don't even aim the first shot in real life. Just get your fire platform stable and with a good place to start from, let one rip, then figure out how far off you are, do some simple math, fire the second one (which should be MUCH closer), adjust, until you start landing shells where they are supposed to go. Then just keep pumping them down range.

You quickly get in pointed in the right direction and it becomes 2D again.

Helps to have RainMan on your team, though. Definately 38.7 degrees with 2.147 kilograms of powder. Definately. Practically 21 seconds to impact. They are definately not going to be happy when this bad boy lands on them. Definately.

There's two kinds of big gun shooting direct fire and indirect fire. Direct fire is aim by the gunner, it's what tanks do aim at the target, add in a little super-elevation to correct for the rounds free fall in flight determined by the targets range, and some defection adjustment to adjust for the round going off course from the wind and let'er rock and roll. In direct fire you want first round kills because when you fire, everybody knows where to shoot back at.

Indirect fire is what artillery does, the round goes through a high ballistic trajectory, but you want the round to travel in as low a trajectory as possible; the higher the round travels, the more likely that it will be picked up by a counter-mortar radar which can calculate the point of origin so the opposing force can shoot back at you. the FO, Forward Observer see's the traget, and tells the FDC, Fire Direction Computer, the approximate grid co-ordinates of the traget, his direction to the target, and what the target is. The FDC then calculates what direction to point the guns in, what elevation to point at, and what charge to use, how much powder. the guns then aim at a two stakes in the ground and fires, usualy one round from the number two gun in the center. If the round hits with-in the burst-radious of the target, then all the guns fire, if not the FO tells the FDC how many meters to left or right, or to add or subtract, the FDC re-computes and 2 gun re-shoots. as soon as the target is hit the unit moves, and re-sets up. This is called shoot and scoot, because if you're still there, the other guys are going to reach out and touch you if they can.

What I want is cameras attatched to those tanks, that image broadcast back to my computer, and for one hell of a death match going on, with my house and its furniture being the battle arena.

If you could define the parameters/dimensions of the battlefield, you could easily place virtual powerups, viewable through your monitor, perhaps some kind of radar system. It could be the ultimate in toys. Now instead of tanks, lets use radio controlled, flying cockroaches [wireheading.com] and you have the potential for one hell of a

> I haven't heard one yet, usually there's a lot of shrill,> one-sided political analysis of what the US has done in> the past and nothing more.

And you probably won't ever hear one. About the most 'thought' the typical protester can manage is "I hate Bush. Bush wants to topple Saddam. Therefore Saddam has to be good." There ARE reasons to be against Gulf War II but you won't hear any of them from the usual suspects who are still stuck in Jan 2001.

There's no question that, all other things unchanged, the world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein. What I don't like is the other things in the world we've changed by removing him this way. (this quote stolen from another poster, my apologies for not quoting him/her)

Nobody's arguing that Saddam's a nice guy. What many of the anti-war protesters are arguing is telling the UN security council to "STFU" and plodding ahead just the same.

I think its absurd to think that we're going to "bring democracy and conflict resolution" to a nation by ignoring the democratic processes that the world has set up to resolve conflicts.

There is nothing even remotely democratic about the UN because to much power is involved with the permanat members of the security concil veto. Considering that France and Russia have an outstanding credit balance of $9 Billion each, it's not hard to imagine that they may have let economic considerations influence their ve

Good, you've given more explanation for why France and Russia oppose the action than any news source I've seen yet.

Still, even if this is their real concern, ignoring them, and the principles the UN was founded on, is not the right course of action. Why hasn't our "fine" president stood forth with this debt as the prime reason for their opinion?

You also didn't approach the issue of why we've been told there's so much urgency: weapons of mass destruction. We don't have proof of them, no matter how much o

So yeah, we were complicit in the deaths of lots of Iraqi children. The sanctions *weakened* the Iraqi people, forcing them to depend on a brutal dictator to survive. And who's fault was that? Ours. The sanctions made Saddam stronger.

Yes, I do mean the members of the UN which insisted on continued sanctions. They weren't exactly united behind the idea.

The UN wanted to end them depending on Saddam's behavior. It was the brilliant move of Bush I and Clinton to give Saddam *no* incentive to change by stating, quite clearly, that the sanctions would remain in power so long as he was in charge.

I never said that the U.S. was the only country to blame. You assumed that. And you know what happens when you assume things.

From skimming the article, there's an "Advanced mode" that lets you set health and stuff, so I think you could set it up that way. I don't know if you can adjust speed, but that would be interesting as well: slow and powerful vs fast and fragile.

Another fun thing would be rc planes with guns similar to those on these tanks. Imagine a fighter duel between a P-58 Mustang and a Zero, or an Me bf 109 and a Spitfire...

When you start doing R/C planes, you soon realize that there's three things you can have --

looks just like a real (scale) plane

flies well

is relatively inexpensive and easy to make

Pick any two!

Even so, some people do do R/C combat with scale models... but it's a lot of work making the planes and keeping them flying:)

R/C plane combat is certainly done. Some is done with infrared `guns', like this [hobbyzonesports.com],
some is done trying to cut a ribbon trailing behind the other plane [georgiacombat.com], and some is done by literally trying to bump the other plane out of the sky.

In all cases, even when you're not trying to, the planes tend to collide quite often. So you need planes that are very resiliant, and that usually means that they aren't going to be scale models of anything -- instead, you concentrate on them flying reasonably well and being tough.